45 pages • 1 hour read
Darrell HuffHow to Lie with Statistics
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1954A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Darrell Huff
Darrell Huff (1913-2001) was an American writer and freelance journalist. Born in Gowrie, Iowa, he studied sociology and journalism at the University of Iowa, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He initially worked as a journalist for The Herald in Clinton, Iowa, and The Gazette in Cedar Rapids before becoming an editor for Look in Des Moines. His most high-profile positions were managing editor for Better Homes and Gardens and executive editor for Liberty magazine. After World War II, Huff stopped editing and moved to California, where he pursued a career in freelance writing and a hobby of building houses. The home he built in Carmel-by-the-Sea won awards and was featured in many articles. He lived there until his death in 2001.
Over time, the scope of Huff’s work has been lost, and it is unknown how many books and articles he published. Most of his published work covered the how-to genre across a wide range of subjects in magazines and published books. These include How to Work with Concrete and Masonry (1968) and Living High on $6500 a Year (1962). Huff’s hands-on nature is reflected in the subjects of his writing. This includes How to Lie with Statistics. Huff meant for the book to guide a general audience to recognize how magazines and advertisers used statistics to exaggerate and deceive. Despite his lack of training in statistics, the book became popular because it could be easily understood. Its humorous language and relevant examples made it accessible. Huff went on to write other books on understanding statistics and mathematics, including How to Take a Chance (1959) and Score: The Strategy of Taking Tests (1961). They proved commercially successful yet never reached the heights of popularity that How to Lie with Statistics achieved.
Huff’s work on debunking faulty statistics also led to his main controversy. In the 1960s, Huff wrote a follow-up book to How to Lie with Statistics titled How to Lie with Smoking Statistics. Initially hired by the tobacco industry to write a pamphlet, “The Holes in the Case Against Smoking,” he also testified to the Senate Committee on Commerce against the Surgeon General’s report on smoking in 1964. During the testimony, Huff used his signature anecdotes to attempt to cast doubt on the report’s results, particularly referencing the issues of correlation and causation. Following the testimony, he was hired to expand the pamphlet into How to Lie with Smoking Statistics. Many of the anecdotes were reused from How to Lie with Statistics and had little to do with the issue of smoking. Problems also arose from his attempts to interpret the data as a journalist, rather than as a trained statistician. Despite frequent negotiation issues between Huff and the publisher, Macmillan slated the book for publishing in 1968. However, for unknown reasons, the text was never published. The manuscript became available in 1998 following the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (Reinhart, Alex. “Huff and Puff.” Significance, 2014).
While concerns regarding his partnership with the tobacco industry remain, Huff’s work on the accessible teaching of statistics and critical thinking remains influential today.
Irving Geis
Irving Geis (1908-1997) was a prolific illustrator for scientific publications, considered one of the field’s best of the 20th century. He was best known for his illustration and co-authorship of many scientific texts, particularly in molecular biology and biochemistry. He also was the illustrator for How to Lie with Statistics and drew the cartoons and charts that fill the book.
Geis was born in New York City, New York. He received degrees in the arts from both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of South Carolina, graduating from the latter in the middle of the Great Depression. He began working as a freelance illustrator and, later, the Art Director for the Office of War Information in New York. Starting in 1948, he became a regular illustrator for Scientific American and specialized in work for the fields of astronomy and chemistry, among others. He was known for his molecular art, particularly his work on John Kendrew’s 1961 article on the myoglobin protein structure. In comparison, his work on How to Lie with Statistics is often overlooked. In the UK edition of the text, Geis’s illustrations are replaced with those of cartoonist Melville Calman.
Alfred Kinsey
Dr. Alfred Kinsey (1864-1956) was an influential and controversial biologist, sexologist, and professor. His most well-known work, The Kinsey Reports, comprises two volumes: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). These include the “Kinsey Scale,” which describes the range of human sexual orientations. Throughout How to Lie with Statistics, Huff references Kinsey’s work, specifically his studies on human sexuality.
Kinsey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and studied biology at Bowdoin College and Harvard University. During his tenure as a professor at Indiana University, Kinsey noticed a lack of research done on human sexuality while teaching a marriage and family course and decided to pursue the subject. His research led him to found the Institute for Sex Research, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, or the Kinsey Institute, at Indiana University. It also led to the publication of The Kinsey Reports.
In How to Lie with Statistics, Huff references the controversies of the time on Kinsey’s work. Most stemmed from his challenges to established societal norms surrounding sexual practices. The reports showed a higher prevalence of fluidity in sexuality, including same-sex attraction, as well as masturbation and premarital sex, than was previously believed. Critics accused him of undermining traditional values, conflating his reporting on the subject with his support for it; Huff touches on this issue in the book.
